Synergy
by mad-cow-mama
Summary: Brittany at MIT. After Blue. Thanks again to terriblemuriel, the alpha of betas.


**The punch hurts, but it's tangible.**

**Rachel rouses herself. She's in a tiny room with one black wall and a tiny sink in the corner. And looming over her, the most displeased Brittany S. Pierce she's ever seen.**

**_Brittany punched her._**

**It's almost soothing, the bruise on her breastbone, amplifying that ache left in the wake of Finn's wake. Brittany looks thinner, paler, colder than she remembers. Brittany looks harder, darker about the eyes.**

**"You ruined it," Brittany hisses.**

**Rachel is tired, so tired. She can't quite encompass what's going on here, but her system needs sleep. She is too afraid to sleep, but her eyes won't stay open.**

**"I can't… I need… Please don't hit me again," she says, as she slumps back onto the floor.**

The One Time Trip Only (OTTO), the pocket watch that Rachel stole, okay used by accident, took years to discover and months to build. Finding a way to make a round-trip device has taken Brittany's entire Master's program. The Round Trip Once Only (RTOO) is how she delivered the OTTO to Santana. Now Brittany will have to make another one of each. If only there were a reusable device…

Another project for another degree.

Then there's the challenge of Rachel. Rachel may make it impossible to have enough stillness to persuade the strings to part. And that's ignoring how impossible the girl herself is.

_Focus. Focus. She'll be out another few hours._

Much as she wants to leave her sprawled on the linoleum, Brittany, still strong after so long, scoops Rachel up onto the single bed, removes her shoes, and tucks her in. She needs the floor space for the next operation.

Something in that moment when Rachel, and not Santana, appeared before her has made her let go just a little. Get cold just a little. She can use that cold, that distance, for calculations, for simulations, to find shortcuts. She needs a shortcut to get Short Stuff back where she belongs.

She's been driven by her need for Santana for so long. And in this timestream, Santana's never come _home_. It's driven Brittany a little off the rails. The faculty are not perturbed. They feed off her leaps of intuition. They simply ensure her dorm room, her food plan, her tuition. It's easier for them if she's here, but never quite _home_, never quite in balance.

She doesn't want to become a factory for time travel devices. She understands that's inevitable; there's so much lust for bending the universe without considering what it will do to the other ones. She just wants to get_home_. Which is why the RTOO is so difficult to make. Because she has to want to return here and now, and it's so hard to really want it.

_Shortcuts. Short Stuff. Leaps of intuition._

She has to get Rachel back where she belongs, that's a given. Worse than being riven from Santana is being together with Rachel, in any way, shape, or form.

There may be a reason Santana never sought her out before. What if… What if Santana never came home to her because she came home to an earlier her? It's crazy, but there may be a way. Maybe Rachel could bring something into the mix to make a shortcut to making a… shortcut. She and Rachel working together? But, ugh, Rachel Berry.

It's distasteful to touch Rachel Berry, but she hasn't had her arms around a girl in a very long time. Brittany props the rag-doll Rachel in her lap. Rachel snores softly into her ear. Brittany can't help herself, she laughs. If Rachel wakes up like this… She bites her lips.

Holding Rachel against her, Brittany begins to focus in on her breath. She holds the crazy dichotomy in her heart. All the anger she's felt toward Rachel, and all the love and longing for Santana. She sinks deeper.

Embracing the crazy girl, the somewhat older, possibly much crazier girl begins to see strings. She sinks deeper.

The sound of Rachel's breath threatens to bring her back to the surface too soon, but she refocuses her attention and sinks deeper. If she can pull this off—

Actually she's going to need to persuade two strings to split into three parts, and one string to split in two. She's only ever done one at a time before.

_Because of course. Of course the plan needs refinement._

Of course, if the plan succeeds, it won't make her happy. It will make _then_Brittany happy. _Now_ Brittany will just— _now_ Brittany will just snuff out, maybe, or continue on, maybe. Theories abound. And maybe, if she does continue on, she'll quit stalling, fly her ass to New York, and get her girl back. Enough waiting for her to come _home_.

_Seven years. _

How could she have made the intuitive leaps she has and never just get on a plane or a train and get Santana back? It's so simple. So first, get this girl back where she belongs. Then get the pocket watch to _then_ Santana. And the other one to _then_ Brittany. And get home.

_Refocus_.

She senses a link forming between her and Rachel, conscious and unconscious, introverted and extroverted, love-driven and self-driven, and she sees that they, in a way, are two ends of some kind of spectrum, and though they don't belong together, the dynamic between them may propel them further than if they had tried alone.

**The pain in her chest wakes Rachel. She takes in a startled breath when a hand covers her mouth.**

**"Don't talk," says Brittany. "We're gonna make it right. Right now."**


End file.
